AMD + ATI = slow down!

Inbox, have mercy! Readers are hearing all kinds of rumors about fallout from …

But did you know that the entire deal still has several important milestones to reach before it's put in the books? It will, and the fact of the matter is that neither AMD nor Intel used this past weekend to change corporate life as we know it. There's going to be a lot of "analysis" out there over the next several days, but remember this key point: very few people actually know anything for certain. And when it comes to claims about motherboard licensing, ATI, NVIDIA, and chipsets, bear this one key point in mind: this is not a done deal.

A merger like this takes time. So far, the Boards of both companies have approved the deal. Shareholders will also need to approve the deal, and given all of the confusion out there over just what makes this deal a "good idea," I think it's safe to say that the deal will be closely reviewed by everyone with a serious stake in the matter. For starters, shareholders will have to think about what the change means for a company that has prided itself on being "brand neutral." Indeed, AMD CEO Hector Ruiz told investors in New York that the deal isn't about AMD becoming a "platform" company, insisting that the company's "best of breed" approach remains intact, squarely against Intel's platform strategy. How that fits with such an expensive acquisition is not yet clear. Shareholders may also be concerned about a acquisition that involves significant new debt to finance the cash portion of the deal, reportedly somewhere to the tune of $3 billion from Morgan Stanley Senior Funding. That concern could be compounded by AMD's latest financial results, which show that the company is indeed mired in a costly price war with Intel. With Conroe coming, competition should get even more heated.

Just as important, due diligence is required on both sides. The Canadian courts will have to look over the deal much in the same way that the US government will be involved in assessing the the fairness of the arrangement and its potential effects. The earliest the deal would clear would be the fourth quarter of this year.

None of this is to say that the deal won't happen. But quick, reactionary moves by the market's onlookers (Intel, NVIDIA, etc.) are not likely, especially when we start to think about the inter-relationships of everyone involved. There is no clear and unambiguous reason to believe that Intel has flipped ATI the bird, or better yet, that Intel is now hot on the heels of NVIDIA. Furthermore, if we take Ruiz's comments seriously, we shouldn't look at this as the end of NVIDIA and AMD cooperation, either. Intel, for instance, offers its own chipsets and yet currently also supports chipsets from both ATI and NVIDIA (although ATI was already expecting business from Intel to slow over the next few quarters). For AMD's part, they insist that their Torrenza strategy of pushing for third-party adoption of key AMD technologies is still intact. The fact of the matter is that it will likely be several months before we can see what this acquisition really means for the players in this market and how they are going to react. Caveat lector.

Ken Fisher / Ken is the founder & Editor-in-Chief of Ars Technica. A veteran of the IT industry and a scholar of antiquity, Ken studies the emergence of intellectual property regimes and their effects on culture and innovation.